


Sleep

by SexuallyMonsterous (Alli_Bialystock)



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Hurt Link, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Protective Rhett, Sleep Sex, Worried Rhett, sad Link
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-02-03 19:11:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12754428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alli_Bialystock/pseuds/SexuallyMonsterous
Summary: After Link is attacked by a group of strangers, Rhett is desperate for ways to get them back to normal. When Link tells him how he wants him to help, though, he's not sure if he can do it - or what it would mean if he did.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first Rhink fic I've ever written! I was planning on it just being a one-shot, but it kind of got away from me and turned into a multi-chapter thing.  
> This is going to get pretty dark, and it's going to involve using somnophilia/sleep sex in a sort of therapeutic way, so if any of that makes you uncomfortable, I'd consider stopping here!  
> A huge thanks to all the Mythical Beasts who have been so kind and supportive since I joined the fandom. <3 I love y'all. And a special thanks to rhettandtwink, my Mythical Twin!

It wasn’t all that rare for Link to be out at random times.

It didn’t bother Rhett, not really. He would have liked a note, but he knew his husband rarely thought of leaving any sort of message when he went somewhere. They spent so much of their lives together that Rhett figured he could let this little bit of communication slide. Link, he knew, should be able to go to the grocery store or even just drive around without having Rhett breathing down his neck. It could be a little irritating, but that’s all it ever really was. It was just… a mild annoyance.

Up until, at least, that one day.

For whatever reason, he was nervous. Link being gone had him anxious. He tried telling himself that his husband was just out having some alone time, but something about that felt off. Normally, Rhett was the one talking other people down when Link was missing. He’d had to calm Link’s poor mother down more times that he could count when they were in high school because Link had taken his rusty old truck out for a drive without telling her when he’d be home, after all. He didn’t think to worry about it, and he knew perfectly well that Link always showed back up just fine, usually a little embarrassed and guilty for causing such a fuss, but always alive and well and with a completely mundane story regarding his disappearance.

Rhett knew all this. He’d never doubted it in his life.

But it just felt _wrong._

He tried texting his husband, but there was no response. He had to swallow down a wave of panic rising in his throat. This wasn’t unusual, either. Link may have even left his phone at home. It certainly wasn’t unheard of for him. Just to check, Rhett tried giving him a call to no avail; the rings gave way to Link’s cheery voice instructing him to leave him a message. Normally, he would have hung up, but that day he left a voicemail, little more than a, “Hey, baby, seems like you forgot your phone, but if you didn’t, call me and let me know when you’ll be home.” Simple. A perfectly good message for a perfectly understandable situation.

So why did Rhett still feel sick to his stomach?

The day dwindled, the afternoon sun melting and sliding down the sky in all its technicolor glory, leaving deep purples and blues in the sky, and Link’s disappearance had stopped feeling normal. Rhett wasn’t even bothering to hide his worry at that point. His texts had devolved from, “Hey, bo, just checking in,” to “where are you????” He started pacing restlessly around the kitchen. He had completely forgotten at some point that he was hungry and had been making dinner for himself; instead, he’d abandoned the chopping board of vegetables and was stalking around the house, scrolling through his phone as if he might find clues to Link’s disappearance in his apps. No posts to Twitter or Facebook. No messages on either platform. Rhett checked his texts and voicemail once every minute just in case he’d somehow accidentally missed or forgotten something, but every time he was disappointed and he terror grew. 

Not only was he missing and not only had he been gone for hours, but it just felt wrong. Rhett tried to explain this to Stevie when he called her, asking if she’d heard from Link. “He’s an adult man, Rhett,” Stevie had tried to explain calmly. “You said yourself that he leaves without notice all the time. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

It wasn’t worth arguing; Rhett knew he’d never be able to explain the pit in his stomach. He still didn’t understand it himself, after all. “Just tell me if he calls you or anything,” he said tersely. He hung up without saying goodbye. 

Finally, when Rhett’s hunger was threatening to outweigh his panic, he heard the front door creak open. His heart unclenched, and he sighed in both relief and frustration. He wanted to start yelling, but he knew that wasn’t fair; it’s not like Link would have known that Rhett was going to worry. “Hey, bo!” he called, jogging to the front hallway. “I was going to make stir-fry, but I got distracted and - Link?” 

He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw his husband. Link rarely stood still, or when he tried, the energy around him was so intense and playful that it was like he was vibrating. Rhett used to tease him, calling him his Energizer bunny and saying that he had springs in his feet. 

But there he was, standing perfectly still, shoulders slumped, his arms wrapped protectively around himself. The energy - the light that Rhett had always associated with Link - was gone. Instead, Link was wide-eyed and shaking, and Rhett noticed a bright red splotch around his left eye that was going to progress into a hell of a shiner by morning. 

“Link,” Rhett breathed. He rushed to his husband, ready to wrap him in his arms, but Link jumped back, pressing himself against the front door. Rhett stopped, holding up his hands in acquiescence, but his whole body begged him to keep going, to run his hands through Link’s hair and kiss him and let him know that he was safe. “Link,” he said again, his voice low and gentle, “what happened?”

Link’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. He gave up and shook his head.

“Link, babe, you’ve got to tell me what’s wrong. We can fix this. Just… talk to me.”

That was when Link started crying.

He slid to the floor, hugging his knees to his chest, burying his face in his arms. Curled into a little ball, he started sobbing. The muffling of the noise did nothing to curtail Rhett’s worry and heartbreak.

“Link.” Rhett’s voice broke this time. He sat beside the smaller hand, reaching an arm out to hug him, but Link winced so hard he retreated. A flare of anger broke through the fear when he asked, “Who did this to you?”

Link shook his head.

“I know,” Rhett cooed softly. He sat as close to his husband as he dared. “I know you’re hurt and I know you don’t want to talk about this, but I need you to tell me what happened. I can’t help you if I don’t know what happened. Who was it that did this?”

After a second, Link gave a weak shrug.

Rhett couldn’t help but feel encouraged by the gesture. “Okay. You don’t know. That’s fine, baby, that’s fine. We can figure it out. Was it a guy?”

From inside the safety of his arms, Link mumbled, “More than one, I’m pretty sure. But they - they blindfolded me, and I couldn’t…”

“Okay,” Rhett murmured when Link’s voice died. “Multiple people. And they… what?”

There was a long pause before Link’s shivering voice whispered, “They hurt me.”

Rhett had to push back another wave of fury. Who would hurt Link, of all people? That was like beating up an entire basket of puppies. Rhett would have already been out on the streets hunting the assholes down if it wasn’t for how terrified their victim still was. As angry as Rhett got, he would never have even considered abandoning Link when he was upset, and this went far beyond that.

“Alright, babe,” Rhett said gently, putting all his energy into keeping his voice from wavering and breaking. “How did they hurt you?”

There was a whimpering sound, and Link tightened his grip on himself, curling into an even tighter ball.

This was bad. Rhett still wasn’t sure what exactly had happened, but he knew it was a hell of a lot more than a fight. As much grief as people gave Link for being too sensitive, Rhett had seen him take a punch. It had to be bigger than that. 

“Did they jump you?” Rhett asked. Link shook his head. “Did they mug you?” Another head shake. “Baby, please. I want to help you, but I really need you to say what it is I’m helping you with. I need to know how bad you’re hurt. I need to know if you need a doctor.”

Link let out a rough sob, his head shooting up from its place between his knees. His eyes were sparkling and red, and his face was streaked with tears. “No!” he choked out. “Please, don’t take me to a doctor, I don’t want them to do one of those…” He trailed off and dropped his eyes, sniffling and trying to contain his tears. “Please, Rhett, I just want to go take a shower and go to bed.”

Rhett’s heart was pounding so hard he could hardly hear over the sound of his blood pulsing in his temples. Everything started clicking into place with horrendous clarity. “Link,” he said. He was forcing himself to stay calm, but there was an edge of rage and terror that turned his voice into a growl. “Did these men…” He cleared his throat. He knew what he needed to ask, but it felt like a century before he managed to make the words come out.

“Did those assholes rape you?”

The look of guilt, humiliation, and pain that crossed Link’s features was the only answer Rhett needed.

His head spun. There was something he needed to do. More accurately, he needed something to do. There had to be some way for him to help, some kind of band-aid that he could slap on this wound. There had to be some kind of protocol to follow, some checklist of things that needed to be done, but for the life of him, he couldn’t think of what. He felt helpless. 

The only information that came to mind was old episodes of Law and Order: SVU. Rhett hated to rely on something to unimportant, so stupidly minor, to help, but it was all he had. He couldn’t call any of the crew, not yet anyway, so he was stuck doing it himself.

He took a deep, slow breath and put a hand gently but firmly on Link’s arm. Link tried to jerk away, but Rhett kept as delicate a hold on him as he could. “Bo, look at me.” When Link shook his head, he sighed. “Come on, Chiasquatch. Look at me, please.”

That nickname, the one that Rhett used when he was feeling especially tender, got Link’s attention enough for him to raise his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he started to say. “I don’t know what happened. I was stupid, I was just walking around and not paying attention to anything, and then there was a knife and - and -” 

Rhett cut him off. He could sense a full-blown panic attack coming, and he couldn’t imagine something that could help less in the moment. “Link,” he said, voice sharp, trying to cut through his husband’s haze of panic, “listen. You’ve got nothing to apologize for. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“But…”

“No buts. Not at all, okay? You didn’t do anything, not a damn thing, wrong. Okay? Someone did something - God, Link, just fucking evil to you. It’s not your fault. I just want to help you.”

“How?” Link asked, eyes welling with fresh tears. “It happened, Rhett, nothing can make it un-happen. What the hell are we supposed to do about this?”

It was a good question, one that Rhett could only hope to have the answer for. 

“You need to go to the hospital, Link.” When his husband gave him a wide-eyed, terrified look, he continued. “I know it’s the last thing you want to do right now. I know it’s hard and that you just want to curl up in bed and forget it ever happened, but that’s not something that you can really do. But it’ll help us find the sons of bitches that did this, and it’ll let us know if you have any other major injuries. What if something is broke and we don’t know about it?”

“But I don’t want to.” Link’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “I don’t want people touching me.”

Rhett’s hand fell away from Link’s arm. “I know,” he said gently, the words an apology as much as an acknowledgement. “But we need to know. These guys deserve to pay, and this is the only way to find them.” When Link didn’t look at him, he added, “They’re dangerous men, bo. If we can catch them, we’ve got to try.”

Those seemed to be the magic words. Tension left Link’s shoulders and he slumped back against the door, exhausted from fear and the adrenaline still draining from his body. “Okay,” he whispered. 

“Okay.” 

They said there side by side for a few minutes, neither of them speaking. Link didn’t have anything more to say. Rhett had a thousand things to say, but he couldn’t seem to put any of them into words.

Rhett kept Link in sight while he got his jacket, keys, and shoes. He didn’t want Link to feel alone, or maybe he himself needed to know that the brunet wasn’t going to dissolve in front of him and be lost forever. He offered to help Link off the ground, but Link refused with a shake of his head, choosing to stumble to his feet on his own and follow Rhett out to the car.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhett and Link go to the hospital. Warning: There is discussion of rape kits and some details of the assault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for being so sweet! I appreciate it a ton. <3 I'm so glad to have the mythical beasts in my life - y'all are some of the kindest and most supportive people I've met.   
> I've been so excited to write this and I've been feeling really inspired. Hopefully the third chapter will be up almost as quickly as this one was!

Something about the drive to the hospital made Rhett furious.

There they were, sitting in the car, Rhett driving and Link riding in the passenger seat. The radio was playing Woody Guthrie. Rhett’s phone interrupted the music every few minutes to provide directions to the hospital. He obeyed all the street signs, all the traffic lights, all the everything. He was cut off by some doddering old woman and didn’t even honk.

And that all made him want to scream.

How did the world get to act so fucking _normal?_ How was the universe allowed to go about its business, as if the worst thing possible hadn’t just happened to its most perfect inhabitant? And how was Rhett going along with it and letting this affront to decency continue? 

He felt like he needed to be doing something more. He thought back to the Greek tragedies he’d read in high school. The Greeks, he decided, really knew how to handle and react to personal tragedies and traumas: tearing apart clothes, stabbing people, and gouging out eyes. That seemed way more appropriate to the situation than driving to the hospital while listening to folk music.

It didn’t help that Link was acting the same way. He was quiet and still (and, Rhett noticed with an overwhelming wave of nausea, sitting in his seat as gingerly as possible), but he wasn’t crying. He had put his seatbelt on as they pulled out of the driveway and spent the rest of the ride staring out of the window, eyes dry, hands placed, unmoving, on his knees. Anyone in passing cars would have thought they were going grocery shopping.

It all felt wrong. It wasn’t _enough_. There was no acknowledgment of what had happened, and it made Rhett itch just below his skin.

They parked in front of the emergency room, and Link swallowed thickly. “Do we really need to go to the E.R.? Can’t we just go to the regular desk or something?”

“I don’t think so. I think this is worthy of the E.R. It’ll probably be over quicker this way.” When Link looked unconvinced, Rhett rubbed at his beard and added, “I get that this feels more public. But there are gonna be just as many people at the front desk as there will be here, and they’d probably just send you down here anyway.”

Link thought about that for a second, then nodded tersely.

“Do you…” Rhett cleared his throat, which was trying to close around a hard lump. “Do you want me to talk to the nurse? I mean, you’ll need to talk to the doctor some, but I can fill out the paperwork and everything if you want.”

Link jerked his head a little again, a motion of affirmation. His jaw was clenched so tight it hurt Rhett’s teeth just to look at him, and his eyes were a little red and shiny, but the average person would never know what had just happened.

They went in together, Link keeping a noticeable distance between them. Rhett offered him his hand, but Link pretended not to see it, and Rhett pretended not to be hurt over it. _Toughen up, McLaughlin,_ a voice that sounded a lot like Rhett’s father said in his head. _Straighten up and be a man. Link needs you._

Usually, Rhett fought that voice in his head with all his might, but he couldn’t disagree with it that time. 

Link took a seat in the darkest corner of the E.R.’s waiting room, crossing his arms and legs and staring straight ahead at the clinical white paint on the wall. There weren’t too many people there, which Rhett was grateful for; it meant less of a wait and less of a chance that they’d be recognized. He couldn’t imagine having to come up with an answer if a Mythical Beast were to ask what they were doing at the hospital. He tried to slouch down enough to hide his considerable height and shuffled up to the nurse behind the desk.

The woman looked up at him, clearly exhausted, but still trying to be friendly. “What is it that you need today, sir?”

“Um.” Rhett looked over his shoulder at Link, who hadn’t moved a centimeter. It was unnerving, seeing him so still. “My husband,” he said, turning back, “was…” 

The words died in his throat. He couldn’t seem to force them out. 

The woman waited patiently.

Rhett cleared his throat and closed his eyes, trying to focus on just saying the words. “My husband was attacked.”

“Okay.” Her voice was gentle. “Could you tell me the nature of the attack?”

Rhett’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. He ran a hand through his hair and opened his eyes to find his vision blurry.

“Was it physical?” the nurse asked, her voice low. “Sexual?”

Rhett nodded, then realized that was probably just as confusing as his silence. “Both,” he managed. “It was both.”

The nurse frowned in sympathy and handed Rhett a form. “I’m sorry,” she said, and she sounded it. Rhett was grateful for that. “I’m going to need your husband to fill it out and bring it back to me, okay?”

Rhett nodded and took the form and clipboard with numb fingers. The walk back to Link’s side seemed to take forever. When he sat down, he noticed Link shifting away from him ever so slightly. 

He couldn’t think about that yet. He needed to get Link in to see the doctor. 

He filled the intake form out pretty easily, for the most part. There were a couple questions he had to direct to Link, but whenever he did, he tried to say it as casually, but quietly, as he could. Maybe if he could make this seem like less of a big deal, then it suddenly would be. “In any pain, bo?” “You get hit in the head?” “Anything feel broken?” Link would answer with nods or shakes of the head when he could, and when he spoke, it was extremely quiet and terse. Rhett wrote everything down and returned the form to the woman behind the desk.

Thankfully, another nurse came out to meet them quickly. She called Link’s name and both of them stood. Link looked up at Rhett, frowning. “What are you doing?” he murmured.

“I… I was gonna go with you,” Rhett explained, flabbergasted. He felt like he’d been punched in the gut, completely astonished by the question. “Do you not want me to?”

The pain in Rhett’s heart must have finally spilled over into his eyes, because Link’s expression softened. The smaller man reached out and ghosted his fingers along his husband’s wrist. “It’s not about you or anything you did,” he said as gently as he could. “I just don’t know if I can have you there. All those questions and everything… it’s already humiliating, and I don’t want to feel that way in front of you.” 

That blew Rhett away. The idea of them not wanting to do _anything_ together was beyond him, and now Link was doing something absolutely terrifying without him. It wasn’t just that he was doing something scary or embarrassing without Rhett - he thought it would be less scary and embarrassing without him. 

But Rhett didn’t argue. How could he? He was hardly in a position to tell Link how to feel or how to handle this whole thing. For once, Rhett had no idea how to handle something that had cropped up in Link’s life

So he just let him go, watching as Link slowly followed the nurse down the hall. He could feel the eyes of the woman on the desk boring holes into him, but he didn’t look back at her, choosing to slump down in his chair just enough for his back to twinge, a reminder that he wasn’t supposed to be feeling comfortable. 

 

Somehow, Rhett managed to fall asleep in the waiting room. He wasn’t sure when he’d drifted off or how, but he felt himself being prodded awake and blinking into white haze. For a second, he thought he’d dreamed everything, but then the waiting room came into focus and he saw Link standing in front of him, looking exhausted and wearing an old, ill-fitting pair of scrub pants. “Doctor said I’m all set to go,” he said, looking even more haggard than Rhett felt. “Said I should get a check-up soon, but I should be fine.”

Rhett suppressed a yawn. “Good,” he said. He pulled himself up from the chair, wincing at the way the “twinge” in his back had turned into a full-on ache. “Was anything broken?”

Link looked down at the stack of papers in his hand, nibbling at his lip. “No,” he finally said, his voice quiet. “I’m a little banged up -” he winced at his own phrasing, trying to shake it out of his head - “got some bruises, cuts, and scrapes, but they’ll all be fine.”

“Oh. Well.” Rhett cleared his throat. “That’s good.” It felt like the wrong thing to say, even the wrong thing to think, but he couldn’t imagine what else he could do. “They say anything else?” 

“Not much. They mostly just asked questions. The doctor said I should get another blood test in a few months or so, and if I’m gonna be having sex before then, I should use condoms.” He looked up at Rhett, the blue of his eyes practically glowing against the reddened whites. “They said they wanna make sure I don’t pass anything along if I caught something.”

Caught. That word felt so inappropriate there, as if Link had taken a sip out of a water fountain and ended up with strep throat. Link couldn’t have caught anything. He might have been given something, had something forced on him, but he couldn’t have caught it. It implied some sort of action on Link’s part. The phrasing made Rhett feel queasy. 

“Okay.” He thought for a second, hesitated, before he continued. “Do they think that could’ve happened?”

“They didn’t say it was for sure or anything, but they said it’s a possibility. They gave me some drugs for a few things to keep me from getting them. I don’t know how well they work, though. It doesn’t sound like they’re a guarantee. And the doctor said I’ll need to take the one for about a month.”

“A month? Gosh.”

Link shrugged defensively. “They said I didn’t have to take it, but I thought it would be a good idea. Just in case.”

Guilt immediately settled into Rhett’s gut at the frown on Link’s face. “Always better to be safe than sorry,” he agreed, trying to mollify his husband. “Was there anything else?”

“Some numbers for a counselor. Stuff like that.”

“You think you want to go?”

Link shrugged. “I don’t know yet.” He glanced up at Rhett, eyes searching for permission.

Rhett gave it instantly. “Whatever makes you most comfortable,” he said gently, and Link gave him a small smile for the first time that night.

They opened the door to the E.R. and Rhett blinked, surprised, into the pink and orange of the sun on the horizon. “How long were we here?” he asked.

“Seven hours,” Link said. “They had a lot of testing to do, and a lot of questions to ask.”

Rhett felt like he should say something, like he should have some comment at the ready in his mind, but he didn’t. They walked to the car in silence.

When they got in, Rhett noticed Link fussing with his too-short scrub pants. “What are those?” Rhett asked, trying to keep his voice light. 

Link’s face flushed. “They had to take my underwear for evidence,” he said. “DNA testing and everything.”

“Oh.” Rhett cleared his throat. _Stay calm. Sound casual. Don’t freak out or he’ll freak out._ Rhett didn’t know just how helpful those thoughts were or how true they were, but it was all he had to cling to. “They take your jeans, too?”

“Yeah.” Link’s jaw was tight. “There was a lot of… fluid. It soaked through my pants. Like I told the doctor, I think there were at least five guys who… attacked me.” His voice wavered, but somehow didn’t break. Rhett had no idea how Link could say this without crying. He could barely hear it without breaking down. 

Rhett thought of all the nights, the ones that suddenly seem so distant and so impossible to reclaim, where Link would be wrapped around him, mewling against his shoulder while Rhett moved inside of him. He thought of how Link would gasp when he felt Rhett coming inside him, the way he’d whimper in disappointment when Rhett slipped out of him, and how he liked to murmur, “There’s so much, baby. I feel so full.”

He wondered, vaguely, if Link would ever want to feel Rhett inside him again.

Those memories made Rhett’s stomach turn. He sat, staring at the keys in his hands and wondering it Link’s thoughts were wandering to the same place. Link used to pull Rhett aside at the office and whisper in his ear about how much he loved feeling Rhett’s cum dripping out of him, and even though it was a small thing, the idea that Rhett might never hear that again - that saying it or thinking it would hurt Link too much for him to be able to enjoy it - shattered a part of his heart. 

It had taken the two of them over thirty years to build their relationship, to the get to the place they were at, to put all of their rituals and preferences and desires together, and it had taken one night and five sons of bitches to rip at it, to tear stones out of the tower they’d build around themselves.

How many bricks had been taken? How thoroughly had they been dismantled? Rhett didn’t know, and he suspected Link didn’t, either. They would have to wait and see. Their relationship, the one that Rhett cherished more than any other in his life, had been torn apart, and all Rhett could do was wait for the dust to settle long enough for him to find the pieces that remained.

Rhett wanted more than anything to reach out to Link, take his hand, feel his cool skin against his fingertips, but he didn’t try. He couldn’t take the inevitable rejection again, not at that moment. 

There was a buzz at his hip, and both of them jumped. Rhett pulled out his phone and saw a text from Stevie. “Did you find Link?” it read.

Rhett sighed. Staring straight ahead, Link asked, “What?”

“It’s Stevie. I called her last night when you were, uh, missing.” Rhett rubbed his eyes and checked the time. “I should tell her we’re not coming in. Say you’re sick or something.”

“Why?”

The blonde looked at his husband, incredulous. “Link, you just -” He choked on the words he meant to say. He cleared his throat and amended it to, “You just got out of the hospital, baby. We’ve been up all night. Don’t you want to go home and get some rest?”

The smirk on Link’s face was devoid of any joy. “I’m not going to rest no matter where we go. May as well go to work.”

“What about your clothes?”

“I always have something clean at the office.”

“Link…” He wanted to suggest that they go home and get a few hours of sleep, for Link to take a shower, for both of them to try and live a couple hours of a normal life. It felt like going home and being alone together might wipe the slate clean, or at least give them a little time to settle into what their new normal would be. 

But it wasn’t his decision to make.

Rhett sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Okay,” he said finally. “Are you sure?”

Link’s eyes were intense when they met Rhett’s. “I’m sure,” he said, voice flat. 

Rhett didn’t argue. He just drove to the studio.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find my official author blog here: https://allison-masters.tumblr.com/  
> Find my fandom/personal blog here: http://sexuallymonsterous.tumblr.com/  
> Buy me a coffee here: Ko-fi.com/allisonmasters


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhett tries to keep it together for Link at the office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, all, for being so kind (and so patient). I'm really excited to be able to work more on my fanfiction and other personal projects!

Rhett wasn’t sure how to feel about the way Link acted during filming that day. It wasn’t that it had gone poorly; in fact, it was just the opposite. 

Link was… Well, he was Link, and he kept it up the entire day. He had covered up his injuries disturbingly well. He yelled and giggled and squirmed and made goofy jokes. He ate an entire spoonful of Vegemite as a punishment for losing a game with his usual dramatic flair. Even after the cameras turned off, when Stevie brought up his “disappearance” the night before, he laughed it off. “I got lost,” he said sheepishly. “I was trying to find some taco place I heard about and ended up halfway to freakin’ Bakersfield!”

“Are you talking about the taco place literally four blocks from here?” Alex asked.

Link giggled, all self-deprecating smiles. “Of course I am, man, but you don’t need to put me on blast, here! Dang!” 

The only marked difference Rhett could see was Link’s resistance to touching anyone, including his husband. Link’s hands stayed firmly on his side of the desk. He had his legs crossed to keep his knee as far from Rhett’s as he could. He fiddled with his ring to avoid touching anything, even to avoid taking anything from the crew so their fingers wouldn’t brush. Rhett, out of instinct, grabbed Link’s shoulder at one point, and the brunette cringed out from underneath his fingers so violently they nearly stopped recording. “My shoulder,” was his only response. “Pulled it the other day.”

“Right, sorry, bo.” He forced himself to stay calm and lighthearted, even though he wanted to cry. 

How could this be happening? They’d spent all night at the hospital and then they were sitting there talking about weird Google search terms like it was some kind of regular day. There were fleeting moments, even whole chunks of time, where it felt like a regular day. But then he’d reach for Link and get a glare in return, one that reminded him of a pitbull who had lived its life in dog fights and saw every touch as a threat, and his heart would sink and he’d remember all over again. 

Whenever the camera switched off and Link thought no one was looking, he would sink into his chair, small but radiating nervous energy, compact like a spring ready to uncoil. He didn’t take out his phone or try to busy himself, just stared at the floor while he fiddled with his ring. Most of the busy crew didn’t notice; as unusual as it was for Link to be so silent, they had enough to do that it was almost welcome. Rhett knew he was practically vibrating in his seat, absorbing Link’s energy in a way that had never really happened before, but he figured the crew just assumed there had been some argument or annoyance earlier in the day that he was still ruminating on, and none of them wanted to bother him.

Except, to Rhett’s surprise, Ellie.

Rhett was refilling his mug with tea when he felt a light, gentle touch on his elbow and looked down to see Ellie’s round face peering up at him with concern. “Are you and Link alright?” she asked quietly. “You guys seem a little… off today.”

Rhett swallowed hard. He wondered if anyone else had noticed. He wanted nothing more than to let the morning’s secrets pour out of him. He was tired, and his whole body ached with stress. But this wasn’t something he could betray Link’s confidence over. “We’re fine,” he lied. “It was just a long night.”

He knew she didn’t buy it, but she didn’t push. She just gently squeezed his arm and gave him a little, worried smile. “Well, if something does happen, you know you can talk to me. Or anyone else on the crew. We all love you guys, you know.”

Rhett found himself blinking rapidly, trying to push back the tears threatening to finally spill out of his eyes. He tried to clear the lump in his throat and gave Ellie a silent nod.

Rhett got more and more agitated as the day stretched on. Not only was he tense and miserable, but he was also exhausted. Much to his chagrin, even Link noticed. “Hey,” his husband murmured to him after filming wrapped up, “you should go take a nap in the loft.”

“What about you?” Rhett asked, his voice hoarse from the sheer emotional strain of the day. Link just shook his head in response, so Rhett went to their office and tried to work. He couldn’t just go upstairs and sleep. He couldn’t leave Link alone in this. 

And what right did he have to be upset, anyway? Link had been hurt, not him. It was his husband who was suffering. 

Rhett knew that most of the world saw the two of them as one entity, to the point where even he saw himself as one half of something: one half of a partnership, a relationship, a soul. He had always, in some ways, thought of Link’s life as his own, something the two of them shared. They’d spent so much time together when they were younger that he’d more than once made the mistake of misappropriating things that were just Link’s - or at least, that should have just been his. Rhett cherry-picked people and experiences that belonged to his best friend and took them as well, from Link’s mom to the treehouse Jimmy had built for him. In his defense, he had given just as much as he took, and as they got older, it became harder and harder for him to see where he stopped and Link began. They were just… together. The same. 

Two halves of one person, sharing every thought and feeling equally. 

He had always thought that he felt Link’s successes and failures, his celebrations and mourning, just as acutely as his husband felt them himself. But this time, his pain ran so deep and struck so hard that it left Rhett stunned. For the first time, he truly felt like he was on the outside looking in, an observer of Link’s agony, and he couldn’t access it. He couldn’t take it on himself, neither to understand it nor to relieve the burden. And he couldn’t offer him anything in exchange that might make it better. 

He was powerless, and he knew that. But he wouldn’t leave Link to handle it himself. He would do the little that he could, and that meant sticking by his side, even when it was hard.

It was easy to tell himself he was going to do that, but as he sat and watched the words on his computer screen slip and slide through a sleepless haze, he realized it was going to be a lot harder to actually follow through on it. 

The day never seemed to end. It stretched beyond comprehension, and Rhett watched in silent agony as the crew slowly filtered out. He wanted to go home and collapse into bed with Link pulled tight and safe against him.

But Link’s energy was apparently boundless. He shot around the studio like a nervous butterfly, flitting from task to task. He was constantly checking the clock and his hands didn’t still; even when he was reading or talking, he was fiddling with his own fingertips. Even after the whole crew had left, he was still rushing around. It had felt normal, like Link’s regular high-energy habits, but it slowly shifted from average to nervous to outright panicked. It was around the time Link started frenetically cleaning and organizing their office that Rhett realized his husband was just looking for something to do, something to keep him busy.

And he indulged him. At least for a while. 

Eventually, though, stress and lack of sleep caught up with him. He was drowsing in the corner, half-watching Link scrub at the surface of his desk with cleaning wipes, when he finally said, “It’s time to go home, bo.”

Link froze, his whole body eerily still. “If you’re tired, you should nap,” he said, his back to his best friend, and Rhett couldn’t tell if he sounded concerned or guilty. Knowing Link, it was probably both.

“We’re both tired,” Rhett said, trying hard not to emphasize “both.” “And we can’t stay here forever. Come on, we’ll get dinner somewhere.”

It was lame bait. Rhett wasn’t surprised when Link didn’t take it. “I’m not hungry,” he muttered.

“Okay. Then we can just go home and go to bed.”

Link finally turned to face him. “I’m not tired.” There was a defensiveness to his features that Rhett had rarely ever seen, a hardness that he knew only came out of Link when he was afraid. It had always been his defense against looking “weak,” especially as a scrawny gay kid growing up in the South, perpetually dwarfed by his giant of a best friend. As much as he hated seeing Link scared, Rhett was relieved; this was, at least, an emotion he could read and understand. It gave him something to work with. 

“Well, I’m tired,” Rhett said quietly, trying to give him an out with some sort of dignity attached. “And I need a full night’s sleep in our bed. And so do you. You’ve been awake too long.”

Link looked down at his still-moving hands, where he was playing with his wedding ring. “Um…” He cleared his throat. “I don’t know if I can fall asleep.”

Such a commonplace sentence, but Rhett could feel the pain and worry beneath the pretense. “That’s okay. I’ve still got some sleeping pills left. You can take one, see how it treats you.”

Link nodded, taking a shaky breath. He looked up at Rhett, biting at his lip. “Can we go somewhere else? Somewhere that isn’t home?” 

The way he blurted it almost made it sound like he was afraid of Rhett in that moment. _Hell,_ Rhett thought, admitting to himself the very thing he was most afraid of, _maybe he is afraid of me right now._ It made sense, and he knew it was nothing against himself, but the idea still hurt. 

Rhett wanted, more than anything, to argue. He wanted to tell Link that ignoring the problem wasn’t going to solve it. He wanted to shake him - hell, he just wanted to touch him at all. He wanted to feel him, know that he was real, remind Link that he was real too. He wanted them to argue and yell and cry and try to understand, or at least acknowledge, the enormity of the thing that had crashed down between them. He wanted assurance that touching Link, holding him, kissing him, would still feel the same. And more than anything, he wanted to do it in the safety of their home, in the little nest Rhett had built for them, where he could protect Link from the world surrounding them. 

But, as much of an effort as it took, he didn’t do any of that. _He needs time. A lot more time than this._

Rhett knew he couldn’t give him much more than that day, that one free day of normalcy where they could pretend they were still living their old lives. The next day would come too soon and too cold and too real, and they would have to handle the ugliness that the world had left on their doorstep. “Alright,” he said finally. “We can stop by the house and go to a hotel.”

The relief on Link’s face was all Rhett needed to know it was the right choice. “Thank you, bo,” Link whispered, his limbs finally relaxing. 

“Of course,” Rhett said, but all he could think was that he wished he could do more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find my official author blog here: https://allison-masters.tumblr.com/  
> Find my fandom/personal blog here: http://sexuallymonsterous.tumblr.com/  
> Buy me a coffee here: Ko-fi.com/allisonmasters


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The guys go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm dogshit at updating, but thanks to y'all for your kindness and understanding the past couple of months. Hopefully the worst is behind me and this can be my main focus for now. :)

The hotel was deceptively nice. It let both of them live in the belief, just for a little while, that things were okay. But eventually, they needed to leave.

Rhett knew that from the beginning. He’d only planned on staying the one night, but something about the way Link smiled when they arrived made him give in to more and more requests for “just one more night.” 

Link didn’t seem happy there, exactly, but he seemed happy enough. His smiles were less frequent and less bright than they had been before what Rhett had taken to thinking of as “it” happened, but he was no longer rushing around to keep himself occupied. His eyes had some life in them. Though he wouldn’t cuddle up with Rhett in bed the way he usually did, Rhett still always woke up to find Link’s hand grasping his across the expanse of empty mattress between them. It was enough, at least for then.

The hotel didn’t have the same sort of comfort for Rhett that it did for Link, and the spell wore off quickly. It was a nice break at first, but it quickly became exhausting and alienating. It felt like Rhett was living in some alternate dimension, and he missed home. He missed his favorite chair, his food, his bed… He missed the physical trappings of the life he and Link had built for themselves. 

And, if he was being entirely honest, he knew that staying away wasn’t good for Link in the long run. He had to go home at some point and face the music. Rhett told himself his husband would be comforted by their home, but really, he just didn’t know how much longer he could delay ripping the bandaid off. 

They had already faced so many abrupt changes. Too many. Rhett just wanted one thing to feel normal again. 

It had been nearly a week when Rhett finally worked up the courage to say something to Link. He waited until they were in the car together after work, Rhett in the driver’s seat with Link beside him. Link was quiet; by that point, he rarely talked anymore when he didn’t have an audience. It was like he put every ounce of energy he had into his words, and all of it was drained away in front of the cameras. 

Rhett’s voice was soft but stern when he spoke. “We have to go home, bo.”

Link almost jumped at the suggestion. He frowned, his icy eyes narrowing. “Why do you say that?”

“I just think it’s been long enough.”

“Really? So what, _you’re_ the one who gets to decide that? When did that happen?”

Rhett sighed. The feeling of a headache forming was becoming a more and more familiar sensation, but he still struggled to push it back. Link had been, understandably, on edge, but even then, it was rare for him to show real anger. Rhett wasn’t sure he could handle that at the moment. “Please, Link.” He was trying to stay calm, but his voice sounded desperate. “I don’t want to fight. I just want to go home.”

“But why?” The question was the same, but the tone had shifted; fear melted away the hard edges of the anger. “Why can’t we just have one more day?”

Rhett ran a hand through his hair, fluffing it almost compulsively. “I just miss it,” he said. It sounded stupid, but he couldn’t take it back; it was true. “I miss our house. I miss our food. I miss our bed. Don’t you?”

Link just shrugged one shoulder, staring down at his hands, fiddling with his ring. 

“What about the dogs?” Rhett pressed. It was a low blow, but it wasn’t something they could just ignore - Jade and Barbara had been staying at Stevie’s every night under the guise of home renovations. Not only did Rhett miss the pups, but he was starting to feel guilty for taking advantage of Stevie’s kindness. 

Link swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Maybe we could bring them with us?” It sounded like a question, but Rhett knew he already had the answer.

“We have to go back sometime,” Rhett said gently. “We can’t just hide out forever, and staying away longer will just make it tougher to go back. And we both know that ‘one more day’ is never going to just be one more day.”

Rhett almost flinched at the look Link shot him, his eyes blazing and hard, but the fire flickered out quickly. His whole body wilted against the passenger seat as he looked at his husband. “Maybe you’re right,” Link admitted. “It just feels so weird to go back. The hotel made it feel less… real, I guess? It’s like I can pretend I’m dreaming, or like we just stepped out of our lives for a little bit. But going back -”

“- means we’re gonna have to see how different our lives are,” Rhett finished quietly. He slid a hand over the center console, palm up. Link eyed it for a second before resting his fingertips against Rhett’s. The little bit of contact warmed Rhett, even though his husband’s fingers felt like skittish birds ready to flutter away at any moment.

“I don’t feel ready,” Link whispered. “But it’s not like I ever would, anyway.”

“Yeah.” Rhett waited until Link pulled away from him to start the car. “Y’know, maybe it’ll be nice, though. Home is comforting. Right?”

Link gave a slight nod, but his eyes stared resolutely out the windshield. Rhett suppressed a sigh and pulled out of the parking lot. 

Rhett tried hard to daydream on the drive home. He’d always enjoyed living in his head; it was comforting to be able to escape to another, better world, one of his own creation that was tailored to suit him. No matter how content he was with the life he was living, there was something fun about being able to go somewhere else. But it no longer felt like something he was doing for fun; now it was all about survival. This was the first time he’d lived in his head because the outside world was too difficult, and the pressure made slipping into his own little universe impossible. 

That, and the fact that Link didn’t have that escape. Rhett knew that Link couldn’t just stop thinking about it all. He was stuck living with it every second, so why should Rhett be able to slip away? He wanted to suffer along with his husband. It was the only thing he could give him anymore: solidarity. 

Link was the only person Rhett had ever met who became more and more still when he was nervous. As they crept toward home on a journey that seemed to stretch out for hours, Link’s wiggling legs slowed and halted. The twists of his ring became less frenzied, then petered out completely. His mouth was a set, straight line. The only thing that moved where his eyes, brilliant blue darting from window to window. Rhett turned a corner onto their street and Link winced, his eyes closed hard against the world. Rhett noted the way Link’s Adam’s apple bobbed with his nervous swallow. 

They pulled into the driveway and Link breathed a heavy sigh. He sounded beyond tired, and Rhett didn’t know what to do about it. He opened his mouth to say something, maybe to make a joke or a benign comment or even to apologize for wanting to go home when Link seemed so downright haunted by the prospect, but he knew there was nothing to say. Instead, he clambered out of the driver’s seat and went up to the door. He tried not to make it too obvious that he was waiting for Link to follow, but he didn’t put the key into the lock until his husband was by his side.

They walked in and muscle memory took over. They both kicked off their shoes and hung up their jackets at the door, then headed to the living room. Rhett, still on autopilot, sat down on the couch and reached for the TV remote. It wasn’t until he realized that a familiar weight on the cushion next to him was missing that he looked over his shoulder to find Link standing in the middle of the room, looking a little dazed.

“You wanna sit down, babe?” Rhett’s voice had a manufactured lightness to it that he hated. 

Link scanned the room. “It feels kinda weird,” he said slowly. “You know when you have a dream, and you’re in your house, but it’s not _really_ your house? I mean, you know that it’s yours, but it isn’t actually familiar to you at all?” When Rhett nodded, he shrugged. “That’s what it feels like right now. I know this place is ours in my head, but it just doesn’t feel right.”

Rhett nodded. It wasn’t the room that had changed, he knew; it was the people inside of it. He realized with a jolt that they weren’t the same people who had been sitting on that couch only a couple weeks before. After years and years of comfortable stasis, something had shifted in a way he didn’t know was possible. For the first time in over thirty years, the man standing in front of him wasn’t the smiley goof he’d met in first grade. They weren’t the same Rhett and Link.

“I know,” Rhett said quietly.

“Do you?” Link asked. “Do you really know?”

The question wasn’t asked harshly or unkindly, but it still stung. Rhett took a deep breath. “No,” he admitted. “I don’t. I’m sorry. I guess I’m just so used to saying it. Because usually I _do_ know.”

“Well, yeah. Because you usually feel the exact same way I do.” Link shuffled forward and lowered himself experimentally into an easy chair that was rarely claimed by anyone but guests. “We’re not… on the same page anymore, I guess.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.” Link looked down at his hands. His voice was rough and his sentences curt, and Rhett could tell he was trying not to cry. He hadn’t seen him resist emotions like that in a long, long time, not since they were kids and he was forcing a stiff upper lip in front of bullies or an adult telling him not to cry _or he’d have something to cry about_. “It’s weird, man,” he continued. “Not having the same brain anymore. I’m all alone in my head for once.”

Rhett’s heart twisted in his chest. “Yeah. That part I do know. I wish I could be in there.”

“Me too. Being alone like this…” Link shook his head, but he didn’t have to say anything else. Rhett may not have known exactly what he was going to say, but he knew it wasn’t anything good. 

Rhett hadn’t even been the one who was violated, and yet, sitting there with this new Link, he felt like something had been ripped away from him. The telepathic connection had vanished. His husband’s features and micro expressions were no longer a language he spoke fluently. He had become a tourist in his own marriage. 

How were they supposed to know how to tell each other what they felt and why when they’d never needed to before? How were they going to communicate? They may as well have been struck deaf, blind, and dumb. The gap seemed unconquerable, and Rhett thought that, no matter how small it eventually became, he and Link would never be standing on the same ground again.

So, that was it, then. They were going to have to talk it out the way they did with the non-Rhett-and-Links of the world, with no shorthand to help them.

Rhett cleared his throat. “You don’t have to tell me, but I gotta ask. Why were you so freaked out on the ride home?”

Link’s whole body tensed. “Dunno. Guess it just feels wrong.”

“Don’t do that, bo.”

“Do what?”

“Lie. We’re not gonna get anywhere lying to each other. It’s me, man.”

Link glared at him, searching him out, looking once again like an angry dog, but Rhett didn’t back down until Link dropped his eyes. “Down the street,” he mumbled. “That’s where they… found me.”

Rhett’s eyes darted to the door, imagining he could see out to the corner. “But it’s not even a block,” he said, bewildered. 

“Yeah.”

“But… How?” He couldn’t stop himself. “How could they do that here? It’s the suburbs. It was daylight. You were barely even out the door. How could this happen?”

“I don’t know!” Link barked, and Rhett jumped, knocked out of his stunned rambling. He jumped to his feet and started pacing. “I don’t know how something like this could happen or how I-I _let_ it happen! It doesn’t make any fucking sense, does it? What could I have done, Rhett? I was practically in our front yard! _What more could I have done?”_

Rhett was frozen in fear. He wondered how they’d gotten here, how a question had turned into such a scathing indictment of Link’s ability to live. His brain yelled at him to back up, to stop Link’s half-panicked ranting, to just be a decent husband and remind him that none of this was his fault and no one could ever have predicted it, but Rhett couldn’t obey. His body had shorted out, disconnected, and he had no clue how to respond. What would it really help, anyway? 

The only thing Rhett could have done to help, he realized, would be to turn back the clock and keep Link from going out at all. He was completely and utterly helpless.

“Link,” he started quietly, but nothing would come after that. He tried again, but got no further. “Link…” 

His husband shook his head, taking off his glasses and scrubbing at his watering eyes. “I don’t know how this happened,” he said, his voice breaking into a sob. “I just don’t know. But I’m sorry, Rhett. I’m so, so sorry.”

_You don’t have to be sorry. You didn’t do anything. Neither of us will ever understand what happened, and we have to be okay with that. I love you._

Fine words, all of them. But they stayed stuck behind the lump in Rhett’s throat as he watched his husband storm out of the room. Minutes later, the door to the guest bedroom slammed shut.

Rhett sat, looking around his living room, the one he’d decorated so meticulously, the one he so frequently accused Link of mucking up, the one where they watched TV together every night. It seemed so off-kilter, like all of the furniture had been shifted half an inch. The change was miniscule, but palpable, and he wondered if this would ever really be their home again. 

Maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe it would have to belong to the old Rhett and Link forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find my official author blog here: https://allison-masters.tumblr.com/  
> Find my fandom/personal blog here: http://sexuallymonsterous.tumblr.com/  
> Buy me a coffee here: Ko-fi.com/allisonmasters

**Author's Note:**

> Find my official author blog here: https://allison-masters.tumblr.com/  
> Find my fandom/personal blog here: http://sexuallymonsterous.tumblr.com/  
> Buy me a coffee here: Ko-fi.com/allisonmasters


End file.
